Can multiple people work on one document simultaneously?

Yes, you see colleagues’ changes in real time.

Is change history saved?

Yes, you can view activity history for each task.

Do I need to install additional software?

No, everything works online in your browser.

Is there a limit on the number of participants?

No, you can invite your entire team.

All features

Team

Collaborate in Real Time

Collaboration allows simultaneous document editing, idea creation on the whiteboard, commenting, and mentioning colleagues for fast interaction.

Built for

All teams
Distributed teams
Operations
Project teams

Try Now See pricing

Team · spring sprint

AKIOMVNSDM

Hero design

Frontend · checkout

QA · regression

Backend · auth

Copywriting

Design review

Ship

MVMV is typing…

5 onlinereal-time

By the numbers

Real-time

presence and editing

customer data

@mentions

in any field

Easylim CRM

Activity

change feed per project

2025 survey

How it works

Project Teams

Edit plans, tasks, and reports together without losing versions.

Sales & Clients
Management & Strategy

How it works

Marketing & Creative

Brainstorm ideas on the whiteboard and comment on designs instantly.

HR Processes
Education & Training

Deep dive

Real-time team collaboration — turning a document into actual coworking, not version hell

5 chapters

Shared documents became table stakes after Google Docs — but there's a chasm between "two people edit one file" and "the team actually works together". A teammate's cursor next to yours, inline comments instead of Slack threads, mentions tied to specific context, presence indicators that show who's looking right now — that's not cosmetics, it's a new shape of collaboration. Below — how to fit real-time collab into the daily rhythm of a team, and when this format breaks down.

Розділ

What real-time collaboration actually is — and why it's not the same as "shared access"

Shared access (Dropbox, most CMSes) means two people can open a file — but if both edit at once, you get a version conflict. Real-time collaboration means two people edit the same document at the same time, with no conflict: you see their cursor, you see what they're typing, changes appear character by character. It's a different architecture, not a feature toggle.

Under the hood it runs on CRDT (Conflict-free Replicated Data Types) or OT (Operational Transform) — algorithms that guarantee five people editing in different spots all converge to the same state on every screen. Google Docs has used OT since 2006, Figma has used CRDT since 2016. Easylim runs on CRDT.

For users this delivers three things: (1) presence — you see who's currently in the doc and where their cursor is, (2) live cursors — other people's cursors move across your screen in real time, (3) @mentions with context — a mention pins to a specific paragraph, not the whole document.

Real-time ≠ shared. Dropbox = shared. Google Docs, Figma, Easylim = real-time.
Presence indicators cut "hey, are you busy?" pings to zero.
Live cursors give the feel of coworking, not "we're both in the same file".

live cursors on a shared doc

Alina

Ivan

Maria

everyone sees the same screenCRDT · live

Розділ

Setting up team collaboration in Easylim in 10 minutes

Create a workspace — the container for your team, projects, and documents. One workspace per company or department; don't fragment them, migration between workspaces is painful later. Inside the workspace you create projects, inside projects: tasks, boards, documents.

Invite people via email or invite link. Roles: admin (controls everything), member (full access to projects they're added to), guest (comment access without paying per seat — see public sharing for that). For most teams, members are all you need.

Create your first shared document — click "new doc" in a project, add 2–3 people. They get a notification; once they open it, they'll see your cursor. This is the moment real-time becomes obvious: you write the title, a teammate adds a subhead below, a third drops a comment on the side. In five minutes you've sketched a structure that would have taken 2 days over email.

One workspace per company — don't scatter people across five separate ones.
Invite links scale better than email, especially for batch onboarding.
Build the first shared doc together in real time — best way for everyone to see how it works.

who is in the workspace · now

live presence

4 online

Ivan O.

in checkout PRD

Alina K.

on whiteboard

Maria V.

commenting · hero

Розділ

Mentions, comments and activity feed — the tools that replace half a Slack channel

@mentions work in any field: in a document, in a task comment, in a table cell, on a Kanban card. The mentioned person gets a notification with context — not "you were mentioned in a document", but "you were mentioned in paragraph 4 of the checkout PRD: '@Ivan, check the 3D Secure logic here'". One click lands them in the exact spot.

Comments have threads — like Slack. This matters because thread-less discussions devolve into chaos fast. You can resolve a thread, and it disappears from the active view but stays in history. Emoji reactions — skip the "+1" comments, just tap 👍. Tiny, but it kills 30% of "agreed" noise.

Activity feed is the project's timeline: who did what, when. No need to ask "what's new" — open the project, see 12 events in the last 24 hours. Filter by type (only comments, only tasks, only docs) and by person. This replaces a dedicated #project-updates channel in Slack.

@mention with context = the click drops you in the right paragraph, no scrolling.
Threads + resolve = comments don't turn into a 200-message dumpster fire.
Activity feed replaces #project-updates in Slack — it's the same feed.

@mention with context

PRD · checkout · ¶4

After payment, the redirect must use the success_url …

Ivancheck this — 3D Secure logic might break here.

2 min ago

Alina mentioned you

PRD · checkout — click to open

Розділ

A distributed team's week with real-time collaboration

Monday 11:00 — spec review. Tech lead opens the new checkout-flow PRD and adds 3 people. All three open the doc at once: the designer leaves comments next to mockups, the backend engineer adds an API-contract section, the PM clarifies the business rules. Forty minutes later — spec done, no 90-minute Zoom required.

Tuesday — design jam. Design and product open the online whiteboard, drop stickies, sketch user flows. They see each other's cursors, react with emoji, talk over voice (Discord integration). This is where real-time pays the most — ideas emerge from others' reactions, the way they would in a physical room.

Wednesday — sprint retro. Instead of a Zoom with screen-share — a shared doc with three columns: "went well", "didn't go well", "change next sprint". Everyone writes at the same time, no waiting for the floor. Twenty-five minutes — full retro, with written record that stays in history.

Thursday — ordinary day. Someone hits a blocker in a task — drops a comment with an @mention to the owner. Owner sees the notification, opens the card, replies. Five-minute loop instead of a Slack thread that vanishes in 2 hours.

Spec review in the spec doc = no meeting transcription, spec is already written.
Whiteboard design jam = coworking even for a distributed team.
Retro in a doc beats a Zoom retro — everyone writes at once, nobody stays silent.

thread on a task · hero design

Hero — new gradient

3 replies

Maria12 min

Hero looks great, but the CTA contrast is low on mobile.

Ivan8 min

Bumped from #444 to #111 — check now.

Alinajust now✓ resolved

Perfect. Resolving the thread.

Reply…

Розділ

When real-time collaboration is the wrong choice

Real-time shines when everyone is online together. But if your team is spread across 8 time zones (SF ↔ Kyiv ↔ Singapore), synchronous overlap barely exists — and real-time degrades to "one types, the other wakes up and reads". For teams like this, go async-first: docs with cleanly structured sections, comments that don't expect instant replies.

Deep focused work (long-form writing, hairy code, financial models) — real-time gets in the way. Another cursor in your peripheral vision, comment notifications popping up — those are microinterruptions that shred flow state. Switch to "solo mode" for deep work: same doc, but presence muted.

Sensitive decisions (layoffs, restructuring, legal matters) don't belong in a shared doc with activity feed. Whatever you type there is visible to everyone with access in real time, even mid-thought. For these — private docs with limited access, or a 1:1 chat.

Alternatives: for async-first with minimal presence — use clips for explanations. For structured response collection without live presence — forms. For external stakeholders — a public link.

8-hour time-zone spread → async-first, real-time is unnatural.
Deep work → solo mode, presence kills flow.
Sensitive topics → private docs, not the active channel.

real-time vs async — when each works

now

Real-time

IOAKMV

✓ spec review · 40 min

✓ whiteboard jams

✓ retros · everyone writes

Async

SF08:00

Kyiv18:00

SG23:00

✓ 8h timezone spread

✓ deep work · solo mode

live for energy · async for focus

Quick takeaways

1Real-time ≠ shared. It's CRDT/OT, presence, live cursors, mentions with context.
2One workspace per company — don't scatter people across separate ones.
3@mentions, threads, activity feed replace half your project Slack channels.
4Real-time isn't for everything: deep work, 8-hour spread, sensitive topics — use other formats.

Integrations